


Dream of the Hero Near Another World

by silveradept



Category: Quest for Glory
Genre: Cameos, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-13 01:50:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7957705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dead do not always take their fate lightly. Heroes sometimes find they can still be of use to other heroes from beyond the veil. All it takes is a connection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream of the Hero Near Another World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wallwalker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallwalker/gifts).



The Land of the Dead was not where she expected to be.

Once Avoozl had been stopped from coming into the world, she had looked for a way out of the darkness surrounding her, but many of the paths looped around, twisted, turned, got confused, and eventually returned her to the place she had come from. Each time she passed the nexus, things seemed a little different than before, a limb changed, a tentacle in a new place. Time was clearly passing on this space, even though it shouldn't be. There had to be a leak in the seal, but she couldn't investigate it too much without Avoozl finding it as well. The best she could do was try to find the path that didn't come back and do something about it. After several times around, Erana noticed it - a new pathway, smaller than the others, that led to a small door, guarded by a skeleton that dropped their spear, and their jaw, when they saw her.

"Whoa, hey, wait! You're actually here! I thought this post was going to be completely boring, but now you're actually here!" Recomposing themselves and picking up their spear, they adopted a more formal tone. "Not too many that come from where you were," they said. "Most of those lost to the Darkness Beyond Time wander there forever. You must have some fairly strong magic to take this pathway out."

"Where am I?" Erana asked.

"The Land of the Dead. The Underworld, if you like. Hey, you're not here just to pop in and grab something before going back up, are you? Because the guy in charge is still really angry about the Prince of Daventry thing. Waltzed in with a forged ticket, got him to cry, and then slipped back out to the land of the living. It was pure hell here for weeks after that."

"I...have a ticket, apparently," Erana said, rummaging in her bag, fingers grasping a piece of paper that was not there a moment ago. She presented the pass to the Guardian, who glanced at it and nodded.

"Yours is the real thing. Oh, and a word of friendly advice? Be careful here," they said, far more seriously than their previous casual attitude. "You are still tied to the world outside. It... upsets...the Boss when people aren't free of their attachments."

Erana smiled, even though the topic was not one to smile over. It was good to converse with someone else after a long time by herself. It was not the thing to be focusing on, not really, but the small pleasures of life, or perhaps afterlife, were ultimately what made it bearable. For all Erana knew, this would be the last conversation she would have with any soul for a long time.

Erana thanked the Guardian for his advice and passed into the world of those whose time has come and gone. A friendly Valkyrie pointed her in the direction of the Elysian Fields, after making a half-hearted pitch to join the heroes of Valhalla. Erana was flattered that her life had apparently qualified her for some sort of heroic designation, but she really just wanted a cottage, a garden, and somewhere that she could observe this new place. If she was dead, she might as well be happy being dead.

On the way, something plucked a string of her being. She had maintained, while she was alive, a connection to the places she had created, where all who sought peace could find it, and it comforted her to know so many used it in their times of distress or worry. The plants and the trees still hummed with life. Someone had taken one of the fruits and was enjoying it. This was something normal for her in life, but the connection here felt different, like whomever was there was connected to her in a more fundamental way. Perhaps this was what the Guardian had spoken of. There was someone in the garden at Spielburg, sleeping there for a night. She could tell that he was inexperienced at being an adventurer, but he had potential. His path in life was not yet fully determined, but it certainly had a good look.

One of the dreams the Hero had was of climbing a very tall mountain to see a wizard and his rat. It had been so long since she had been to see Erasmus. Ever since the accident with Fenrus, he had taken more and more to staying in his tower. Maybe this adventurer could find a way of helping. She tried to reach out to his mind, to plant an idea in fertile soil like so many other plants she had tended, but the connection wasn't strong enough for her to do more than watch him sleep, and see his dreams of becoming a proper Hero. 

She watched his dreams over the next few nights, as he met fairies, battled brigands, and tried to undo a curse set by Baba Yaga on the valley. He seemed really close to finishing when he vanished. There were two options for something like that - either he would soon be here with her, or he had left the valley. On one of her trips to the gate for flowers and conversation with the Guardian, she left word with the them to keep an eye out for the burgeoning hero and returned to the task of trying to make her corner of the afterlife as bright and cheery as possible.

It was a week before one of the goblins she had hired as gardeners, Hollywood, mentioned a flying carpet that had been leaving Spielburg, headed south, with a couple of Katta and a hero in board. "Big deal," he had said to the others. "So he sent Baba Yaga's hut away and returned the Baron's children to him. The desert out there will get them all anyway."

Erana was cheered by the prospect that he had become a hero, and that maybe she had played a small part in keeping up his spirits. 

She had known of her connection to the gardens she left, but she hasn't realized that she might still be connected to other When she felt a small tug from the Wizard's Institute of Technomancy, who had not taken down her faculty portrait despite all the time she had been missing and away from them, she paid attention to it rather than ignoring it as she had for the last few decades.

"...just captured four elementals as they were sent after Shapeir. Found the Emir, too, as a Saurus, and made the tree feel alive again. He left with a caravan to Raseir yesterday. Maybe he can do it," Aziza was finishing.

"The same one that I told you about that fixed everything here in the valley? Well, except him," Fenrus remarked, pointing a claw at Erasmus, who was busily trying to stack a set of Tarot cards into something resembling the castle they lived in. "He had an aura about him that suggested he might be a capital-H Hero. Plus, I felt a little of her presence on him. If there's anyone left in the world who can figure out where she is, it's probably him."

"I'm sure that we can offer...discreet assistance if needed. At the very least, someone should always have an eye on him in case you're right, Fenrus. A lead on the whereabouts of Erana would be most welcome news."

Erana smiled, cheered by the thought of so many people keeping her memories alive. The flowers of the underworld needed a lot of happy thoughts to bloom, and her gardens, wherever they were, always collected happy thoughts. Even here, in a place where everyone had to contend with the somewhat sobering reality that life was no longer theirs to live.

The Lord of the Dead visited soon afterward, out of his imposing and formal costume, and seemed charmed by the flowers and the gardeners, but also by her.

"You still have a connection to the land of the living," he said to her, a look on his face that seemed to mix fury and amusement. "You are bringing joy to this realm of suffering and contemplation. Those who come to your garden start to make plans to try and leave, or to contact those on the other side and inspire them to attempt the journey to bring them back from my kingdom." He paused for a moment, considering his next words before speaking. "If this state of affairs continues, I think you will find that the Darkness Beyond Time is the only place that will welcome you." Without waiting for a response, he strode away from her. As he left, the color, vitality, and love of the garden all seemed to be pulled along with him, leaving only dead husks and lifeless blooms in his wake. Many of the goblins and gardeners she had spent so much time cultivating fled as well. Erana felt chilled herself, as if some part of her existence had been ripped away and was now his.

The next day, on her way to the gate, feet following the path by habit more than by design, while her mind thought about what the next garden might look like, the Hero, as she was beginning to think of him, appeared to her at the Pool of Peace in Fricana. He was certainly becoming well-traveled, she thought to herself before examining the very loud thoughts he was having in another of her gardens. She wasn't sure why this connection was so much stronger than the others - perhaps Fricana was closer to here than the other places he had visited? 

The Hero was trying to figure out a way to solve the conflict brewing between two cultures that normally kept to themselves. Getting initiated into one or the other tribe so as to obtain the artifacts and return them to their proper tribes seemed like a good action. As did just stealing the right artifacts from each tribe and returning them. Erana seemed surprised that such a thought could cross anyone's mind while in one of her places, but she had been losing track of how long she has been there. Perhaps her influence in the world was also waning. Or perhaps this particular Hero was very strong-minded and could resist even her, may for a little bit.

Then, she felt it. Just a little sliver of something, possibly even beyond the Hero's active senses, but the wind had a whisper of something in it that she recognized from her long stay. One of the Lord of the Dead's underlings was in Fricana, and was probably the cause of all the conflict and strife. That explained the strength of the connection - Fricana was sitting adjacent to this realm, at least for the moment. 

Had the Lord of the Dead been trying to intimidate her into not noticing? Or not caring if she had noticed? Well, the next visit was going to be a scorcher if she had anything to say about it. As the Hero fell asleep, she whispered into his dreams, telling him to look beyond the conflict for its cause, to get the Linotaurs investigating, to dig deeper and learn more so that he could avoid being trapped by someone else's plans. She didn't know whether he would listen or remember on waking, but she gave him all the answers she could provide and hoped it would be enough.

She couldn't suppress her grin fast enough when a few days later, the Lord of the Dead returned to her cottage, sufficiently incensed as to have his hair slightly aflame. Instead of feeling like her happiness was being turn away from her, Erana could feel the waves of rage and anger rolling off of him. This was a better feeling, a feeling she could use for herself and to speak her mind to him.

"I told you not to meddle, Fae wizard," he growled. "You influenced others to seek out the true cause of the conflict I had sent to Fricana. Thousands of souls have missed their appointment with Fate and with me because of you. The scales must be balanced and those lives taken - or equivalents sacrificed. Your champions cannot continue to interfere with the paths of life and death. And you," he snarled, " _you_ will no longer be able to influence him from here."

The Lord of the Dead snapped his fingers, and Erana found herself bound in iron chains. Smiling at get discomfort as the iron began to burn into her, the Lord of the Dead brought her to the gates of the Underworld, past the Guardian she had befriended, and sent her spinning into the void, back to the Darkness Beyond Time, back to the space she has arrived from, where Avoozl waited for someone to release him.

Moving gingerly from the iron burns, Erana narrowly missed being struck by a writhing and very active tentacle. With a growing sense of realization and horror, Erana realized Avoozl was far too animated for a being supposedly trapped between dimensions for all time. Someone on the other side of the veil had found the leak, and intended fully for Avoozl to return to the lands of the living. Someone had preserved at least one of the rituals that would bring Avoozl back and was searching for the other ones. The last time someone had attempted to use those rituals, Erana recalled, she and Piyotr had raised a force, had used powerful magic...and were both alive. Piyotr had sacrificed himself to give her the time she needed to complete the ritual and stop Avoozl from emerging further. She didn't know anyone else, and nobody had been in her garden in Moravia for decades. She didn't have any means of communicating or even using her magic to help stop the cult again. In this place, she couldn't feel any but the strongest of connections she had to the world, and there was nobody near any of those places she could feel. Her staff still stood watch over the town, but it could only protect people. There was nothing she could do. Erana sank down to the ground.

Until she felt him again. His presence was much stronger this time, stronger than any other time before. When she connected with him, she understood why - he had been pulled to Mordavia! Relieved to have a familiar presence so close by, she threw herself into his mind to try and give him the knowledge he needed, but once inside, she could feel that he had already met someone very involved with Avoozl. The darkness pulled at his mind, trying to find a way in and to make him a willing servant. She could feel the woman that was trying to get to him. She loved him, which was what was keeping her magic from totally overwhelming him. She wanted him to come to her willingly - it was the only way she could preserve him for herself.

Erana didn't understand how someone with that much darkness could love anyone, but if love was the way to go, then she would provide him with all the love he could use. She called up one of her favorite memories, a time when she had been connected in the Fae realm to a source of pure magic, spinning and whirling in delight at the possibilities. Even with a diminished connection to the world, she could fill his head with the joy that came from being uninhibited around the magic that could shape her will into anything. Even though he would never understand the experience, she gave him all the joy and happiness that she could summon.

Avoozl could feel her interference and moved to block her work. She felt his darkness invade the Hero's mind, stripping away the joy she had carefully placed and filling it with depression, isolation, and the fear of dying. She struggled against Avoozl, crying out to the Hero in the middle of his pain, but only succeeded in waking him up from the nightmare.

The next night was the same - the joy of magic, the despair of the darkness. The night after that, the same again. For weeks, each night the Hero slept, she filled him with joy, companionship, and motivation to continue being a hero, and Avoozl tried to strip it away from him and make him retreat into himself and give space for it to invade. She called to him every night and implored him not to give up on himself or others. She saw in his dreams the ways that someone was helping him collect all the rituals for summoning Avoozl. She tried to persuade him in the midst of the terrible darkness to try some other way, but she could only influence his dreams - whomever had him in waking wasn't going to give him up easily. Erana could only hope that there would be one night soon where he was free of Avoozl's power, because she felt like, despite her best efforts, she was losing the battle for his mind.

She had almost reached the limits of her strength. Even as she was getting ready for the nightly battle, she knew that she could not keep up for much longer. The rituals were strengthening Avoozl. Soon be would be stronger than her, and at that point, all would be lost. When she went into his dreams that might, she noticed the Hero's mind was less conflicted than it had been. He'd made a decision about something, she could tell, and that decision has allowed him to completely repel the darkness in his mind and heart. So great was her joy that she accidentally manifested herself into his dreams and kissed him soundly. Then quickly withdrew, embarrassed at herself for being so blatant.

Avoozl was writhing with anticipation. Something big was about to happen. The cloud around the Hero had been enormous, and Erana realized, too late, that the very thing she had been doing to try and fend off Avoozl had been _feeding_ him. Thanks to her, there was enough energy surrounding the Hero to draw Avoozl out completely into the realm of the living, if there was someone there to harness it. She'd been too focused on his inner life to realize what was happening in front of her face! Looking with horror at Avoozl, she could see the beginnings of a portal forming and heard chanting voices in the other side. A man, a woman, and occasionally, another man were speaking words of power, trying to bring Avoozl back into the world that she had cast him out of. She tried to run toward the portal, to cast magic to close it, but she did not have her...staff? Erana slowed, entirely confused at the certainty that her staff was nearby. The last time she had felt the staff, it was in the town. One of the men had her staff now, and it seemed to be okay with this change in ownership. Her hesitation about the staff gave her time to see the man, now more properly seen as a vampire, cast a spell that the woman tried to block with her body, dragging her into the nascent portal, which used her life and magical energy to widen the portal further.

With her vision no longer blocked by the woman, Erana saw the Hero she had only touched in his dreams. With her staff in his possession, waiting for the opportunity to be useful. She ran for the portal again, but as she got close, she heard the Hero tell a silly joke about a Wizard and a farmer's daughter. The idea of a malevolent entity trying to shroud the world in darkness for their own purposes, and the hero telling a joke at the worst moment for humor should have been terrifying, but all she could do was laugh. The joke wasn't even that funny, but she couldn't help but laugh. And keep laughing. She was entirely helpless to a joke, even though the world was about to be shrouded in darkness, and she didn't even care because all she could do was laugh at everything. And watch as the Hero struck the vampire man into the opening portal, pushing it wider, making it almost large enough to being Avoozl into the world.

Erana cried out in despair before she felt one last connection pulling on her. She had forgotten... no, not forgotten, buried the last thing, the one piece of her left behind when she had sealed Avoozl before. A tear, filed with all her sorrows, had blossomed in the presence of so much magic and become the crystal that sealed the portal. The Hero had her staff in his hands. He tapped her staff against the crystal, removing the final obstacle in the way of Avoozl's return. Memories flooded her, reminding her of all the things she had left behind in life. The weight of them would have been crushing, except that she was still laughing at the joke. The laughter helped make the memories more bearable. The presence of the Hero near her, and the love she felt for him, helped cushion those memories with others. She knew what she had to do next, even though she knew she would regret not getting to know him any more than his dreams.

Avoozl was halfway out of the portal when she recovered from the joke. Mouthing an apology to the staff that had served her so long, she snapped her fingers and Triggered it. Feeling the heat building, the Hero dropped the staff right into the portal building at his feet. As the head of the staff crossed the portal boundary, the magical chain reaction that she had started came to full fruition. Thermonuclear Blast was not a spell to be cast lightly, because of the wide devastation, but destroying an interdimensional creature of evil certainly seemed like a good reason to do it. All there was left to do was wait. She closed her eyes and waited for the explosion to disintegrate her spirit.

When the boom failed to materialize after far too long, she opened an eye and was greeted with the sight of something familiar: a pathway leading to a door, guarded by a very impatient Guardian of the Gate.

"Well?" he said. "I'm supposed to collect you now. Are you ready to go?"

Erana smiled. "Not yet," she said, and went over to thank the Hero that had finally set her free. Once she had said her final goodbye, she followed the Guardian back through the passageway that had been denied her. After the door to the Darkness Beyond Time closed, there was a muffled sound that rattled the door for a few seconds and then a moment or two of silence.

"YOU!" arrived not too shortly after, an accusatory shout that also gave clarity to the person uttering it.

There, at the gate, were the two she had just seen die trying to summon Avoozl. The woman had also been a vampire, but her presence felt familiar, even though Erana had never seen her before. When she realized where she had felt the presence before. Several other pieces of the puzzle dropped into place, now that she saw what had happened more clearly. "Oh," was the only thing she said aloud.

"Yes, I loved him," the vampire woman said, having come to the same conclusion a little while before. "Thanks to this fool," she pointed at the vampire man, "I died for that love. You should have let me have him. Then we could have been together in the darkness forever. I will not forgive you for this." Angrily, the vampire woman spun around and stomped off toward Valhalla. The vampire man, sensing the entire conversation he had witnessed would make no sense, headed off in the opposite direction, toward Helheim.

After they had disappeared off into the distance, the Guardian looked at her again and shook his head. "You've managed to make things worse for the Lord of the Dead. Now you _and_ that vampire lady have a connection to the land of the living now. I don't want to see the day when your Hero has to choose between you. But when he does, it's going to change everything. A word of advice," he said, adopting the serious time he had used for her the first time she had passed through his door, "Keep your head down this time, okay?"

Erana made no promises, because she had seen the look in the other woman's eyes. It might not ever be open hostilities between them, but she knew they both intended to fight for their Hero's heart. She passed on into the Land of the Dead again, and started on the long path to her cottage and her garden. The flowers would have wilted by now, and she intended to make a good impression the next time the Hero came looking for her.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to an industrious Doozer that helped work this into better shape.


End file.
